in those cases is an interesting question.

At the other pole are those innovation processes that aim to create new behavioral patterns by building upon conditions of use that do not necessarily exist within a given group, community, or market segment. Here, innovation is more radical and corresponds to evolution paths that occur spontaneously within small groups of users that develop new solutions to old problems.

The distinction between the two poles within the innovation process provides a fresh look at another debate still active in design circles: the extent to which a design direction causes only desired effects. Sometimes this kind of “deterministic design” has been set against user-centered design [ 3]. However, the common observation that people use artifacts in ways for which they were not designed has a great appeal in our community [ 4].

Design, after all, can imply costs that we cannot easily estimate initially and that sometimes cause undesired consequences [ 5, 6].

This has also been widely discussed in sociological literature, and we have recently witnessed some dramatically negative examples of the human ability to evaluate the risks of innovation in a global economy [ 7]. The evolution of culture therefore is not always foreseeable. The good news, however, is that we can at least identify the type of evolution a given culture is undergoing, and use this knowledge to develop appropriate innovation strategies.

Mutation
Natural Selection
Always happens
even if rare
Reduces accidental
innovation
Can be accidental
Select a direction
Can be manipulated
Accentuated differences
Contrasts, drifts
No effects in large
population
Creates new variations
Uncontrollable
Drift
Migration

• Figure 1. Four patterns of evolution

Evolutionary Models of
Cultural Change

The theory of biological evolution is a very helpful approach, as it can be applied to the analysis of cultural evolution (and therefore, innovation) to identify the possible forms that innovation can take. It can provide a general framework for understanding how cultures change and how we can discover and assess that a particular culture is changing. In particular, Sforza has shown how four patterns of evolution [ 1]—mutation, natural selection, migration, and drift (see Figure 1)—are key to our understanding of cultural evolution and change.

Mutation is a very small change within a given value system. A rare event that can occur in any culture and/or community, mutation cannot be avoided, and it can cause either positive or negative consequences. While, according

to Sforza, biological mutations may or may not necessarily be transferred genetically, in cultural evolution, people can choose to propagate a given mutation. Mutation is a diversifying force, as it creates new directions and unexplored paths. An example of a muta-tion-based innovation process is the use of tags for social bookmarking. This was Joshua Schachter’s radically new solution to his problem of keeping track of the notes on thousands of bookmarks on Muxway, a bloglike website, known also as the antecedent of del.icio.us [ 8].

Natural selection is the main force that controls the evolution of culture within groups and communities. It is the pressure that operates on a given system of values and beliefs in order to select those behaviors that best fit the environmental conditions of use. In other words, it is the natural process

[ 3] Verganti, R. “Innovating Through Design.” Harvard Business Review 84, no. 12 (2006): 114–122.

[ 4] Lockton, D. Design with Intent: Using design to influence behaviour. http://archi-tectures.danlockton. co.uk/

[ 5] Sachs, W. Globalization and Sustainability: An Essay. Berlin: Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2000.

[ 6] Shedroff, N. Design
Is the Problem: The
Future of Design
Must Be Sustainable.
Brooklyn, NY: Rosenfeld
Media, 2009.

[ 7] Beck, U. Conditio Humana. Bari, Italy: Laterza, 2008.

November + December 2009

[ 8] Smith, G. Tagging: People-Powered Metadata for the Social Web. Berkeley, CA: Ne w Riders Press, 2008.